Should Enfield Officer In Beating Still Serve?

He has been the subject of 14 civilian complaints in the last seven years, The Courant recently reported, with allegations ranging from rudeness and discourteous conduct to excessive force and racial profiling. He was the object of about a third of the 26 complaints against the nearly 100-officer department in the last four years, half of the six filed in 2013.

@ingenium72 Yeah maybe he is a bad ass. That is what you want. So long as he doesn't step over the line; that's cool by me. I don't hear much concern from journalists about these punks putting a knife or worse in a cop. These stories are always skewed towards the punks.

But other than one suspension of 60 days, after he got into a fight with a fellow officer in 2007 during a domestic dispute with his then-girlfriend, none of the complaints stuck and Mr. Worden's career has progressed without interruption.

Fortune smiled on him again last week when Hartford State's Attorney Gail Hardy rejected an arrest warrant prepared by his own department stemming from an excessive force complaint that would have charged Officer Worden with third-degree assault and fabricating evidence.

The April 1 incident began with a seemingly minor motor vehicle check for possible illegal drugs at the town boat launch. Officer Worden administered several closed-fist punches to one of the suspects, Mark Maher. Photos of Mr. Maher show him with cuts and bruises on the right side of his face and his eye almost swollen shut. After interviewing all the parties and studying video of the incident, Lt. Lawrence Curtis concluded that Officer Worden hit Mr. Maher with punches that "were neither necessary nor needed" during the incident.

But Ms. Hardy declined to prosecute, saying that although Officer Worden's actions might violate police department use-of-force rules, they did not rise to the level of criminal prosecution.

It is often difficult to prosecute police officers for on-duty actions, and it should be. But here the photos and the statements of other officers suggest Ms. Hardy's decision should be reviewed by the chief state's attorney.

Officer Worden is on paid administrative leave while the department continues its internal investigation of Mr. Maher's brutality complaint.

Police work is difficult, and most of the time the cop should get the benefit of the doubt. But Officer Worden's pattern of conduct over the last seven years raises the question of why he is still wearing a badge.